Pizza baker in Olympic row
The Swedish Olympic Committee is demanding 50,000 kronor in damages from a pizzeria owner for making a special pizza to celebrate the Winter Olympics.
Mammad Wallérion, who owns a pizzeria in Västerås, near Stockholm, advertised the pizza ahead of last month’s games in Turin. The celebratory pizza was topped, in typical Swedish style, with minced beef, pineapple, ham, garlic cloves and sour cream. He dubbed it the ‘OS Pizza’, after the widely-used Swedish abbreviation for the Olympic Games.
But the bureaucrats at Sweden’s Olympic headquarters in Stockholm were not amused. In a letter, the committee told Wallérion that ‘OS’ was a registered trademark, and asked for information about how he has used it, Vestmanlands Läns Tidning writes.
Wallérion apologised to the committee in a letter, and renamed his creation the ‘Winter Pizza’.
This was not good enough for the Olympic Committee, who demanded damages of 50,000 kronor. Mammad Wallérion recorded one of his conversations with the committee’s legal representative, who said:
“Either we say 5,000 now, or we will insist on the full 50,000. Now don’t start...our patience wears a bit thin on questions like this.”
Wallérion accepted the compromise.
Björn Rosengren, deputy chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee, said that 5,000 kronor was a symbolic amount for the trade mark breach.
“We pursue all [trade mark breaches] we find out about. We go through ads,” he said.
“We are kind to the little guys,” he added.
TT/The Local
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Mammad Wallérion, who owns a pizzeria in Västerås, near Stockholm, advertised the pizza ahead of last month’s games in Turin. The celebratory pizza was topped, in typical Swedish style, with minced beef, pineapple, ham, garlic cloves and sour cream. He dubbed it the ‘OS Pizza’, after the widely-used Swedish abbreviation for the Olympic Games.
But the bureaucrats at Sweden’s Olympic headquarters in Stockholm were not amused. In a letter, the committee told Wallérion that ‘OS’ was a registered trademark, and asked for information about how he has used it, Vestmanlands Läns Tidning writes.
Wallérion apologised to the committee in a letter, and renamed his creation the ‘Winter Pizza’.
This was not good enough for the Olympic Committee, who demanded damages of 50,000 kronor. Mammad Wallérion recorded one of his conversations with the committee’s legal representative, who said:
“Either we say 5,000 now, or we will insist on the full 50,000. Now don’t start...our patience wears a bit thin on questions like this.”
Wallérion accepted the compromise.
Björn Rosengren, deputy chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee, said that 5,000 kronor was a symbolic amount for the trade mark breach.
“We pursue all [trade mark breaches] we find out about. We go through ads,” he said.
“We are kind to the little guys,” he added.
TT/The Local
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